From Earthquake to Empowerment: Sam Darguin’s Fight for Haiti’s Future

What began as an email after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake has grown into a movement that empowers women, educates children, and bridges divides across borders. Sam’s story is one of heartbreak, determination, and an unshakable belief that giving up on Haiti is simply not an option.

The Tailspin:

On January 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands and shattering the nation’s already fragile infrastructure. At the time, Sam Darguin was living in New York, working in lower Manhattan. His family had been in Port-au-Prince for a wedding just days before.

“I look up on the screen on 42nd Street, and here it is on the news. Haiti has just been struck by this earthquake,” Sam recalls. “Immediately, the first thing I thought about was if my family was okay. And then the second thing was, what can I do to help?”

Within 24 hours, Sam had sent an email offering up his father’s modest school building in Haiti as a staging ground for relief workers. The next morning, his inbox overflowed with messages from the Red Cross, search-and-rescue teams, and NGOs desperate for space.

What started as a short trip to help turned into a life-altering journey. “I said I’d go for a week or two,” Sam admits. “But the story does not end there at all. And I wound up staying for over 10 years in Haiti.”

The Work:

From those chaotic first days, Sam began building what would become the Haitian American Caucus (HAC)—a community development organization focused on education, healthcare, and entrepreneurship.

At its heart was a simple truth: Haitians don’t lack ambition or creativity, they lack opportunity. Parents of schoolchildren often asked Sam for small loans —$50 here, $100 there —to start businesses. Rather than dismiss these requests, Sam listened.

“I was a bit naive at first,” he admits. “But then I realized, everyone wanted to do something. Everybody is an entrepreneur in Haiti. Everybody’s a hustler.”

With training, microloans, and structure, those small requests became thriving enterprises. Women who once struggled to feed their families began buying land, building homes, and sending their kids to school.

The impact was visible. “The first thing that caught my eye is that just physically, folks just started to look healthier. Their kids started to look healthier and just better kept,” Sam says. “Kids were eating three meals a day. Families began to dream again.”

At the same time, HAC grew its school from a single building into a vibrant campus serving over 600 children. Despite poverty and instability, students excelled, winning robotics competitions and graduating into universities, defying every stereotype of what was possible in Haiti.

But progress was fragile. By 2023, gangs had overtaken Port-au-Prince, and Sam’s school sat directly in their path. Within hours of a warning from a parent, the campus was evacuated. Days later, it was looted and taken over.

“That was my Haiti low,” Sam admits. “I said, I’m done.” But his staff refused to let him give up, reminding him that ‘HAC’s vision is much bigger than these gangs.”

“What we've done with these kids over the past 10 years was bigger.”

Led by local teachers and administrators, HAC quickly placed hundreds of displaced students into new schools across Haiti. And by September 2024, they had opened a brand-new school in the southern city of Les Cayes, starting with 150 children. A year later, enrollment had already grown to 400.

“It's a beautiful thing,” Sam shares. “That is what really birthed this saying that I use now where I say giving up on Haiti is simply not an option.”

The Tailwind:

Today, HAC operates on both sides of the island, supporting Haitian families in the Dominican Republic as well as at home. Through education, small business training, and shoe distribution partnerships, Sam sees even the smallest interactions — like selling a pair of shoes — as a form of nation building.

“The Haiti-Dominican Republic piece,” Sam begins, “It's like two twins that are tied at the hip that don't like each other.” 

Sam recalls seeing his Haitian staff selling to Dominican clients, exchanging Creole and Spanish words, and realizes the effort is slowly bridging a gap.

“When I go to the stores and I see my Haitian staff interacting with a lot of Dominican clients that are coming to get shoes from us,” he says, “In some very small way we are bridging some kind of gap between these two nations.”

Through it all, what drives Sam is not despair but resilience — the kind he sees daily in the women, children, and families who refuse to give up.

“Twenty years from now, I’m hoping that Haiti is on the up and up,” Sam explains. “I would like to see some of the kids that are at the school that are in university, I would love to be able to say because of the fight that we're leading today in a big way, it's contributed to the new Haiti that we all want to see.” 

Sam’s journey proves that hope is not naive — it’s necessary. And in the face of chaos, it’s the solidarity, resourcefulness, and humanity of Haitians themselves that point the way forward.

To hear more about Sam Darguin’s journey, the Haitian American Caucus, and his vision for Haiti’s future, check out the full episode of re:Purpose with Buddy Teaster.